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It had been a year since we’d put on an event together, but on Saturday night we were well and truly back – and this time we sold out (in a good way).

From the team of two who packed a disco bag and took a 70’s party to Bordeaux, and who in the past have thrown 70s parties at the Brockley Social Club and 80s parties at the Hill Station Cafe, we brought a slightly new format to the Tyrwhitt Road end of SE4. This time we visited The Talbot and screened Pretty in Pink the film, in its 30th anniversary, and squoze in a quick disco of all our favourite songs from the decade fondly known as the Eighties.

What a trip down memory lane, to reacquaint ourselves with the characters of Andie and Duckie, Blane and Steff. 1986 seemed so long ago and yet so oddly recent all at the same time. I’m not sure how well the film stands the test of time, as I’m blinded by the nostalgia and the number of times I watched it back then (aged a tender 14). However you can’t beat a good boy meets girl from the wrong side of the tracks storyline, especially adding in that smarmy turn from James Spader in the unbuttoned shirts and linen suits, and the fantastic character of Duckie played so beautifully by Jon Cryer. Every fashion moment is, literally, unspeakable, and Iona is a great character who provides a lot of the laughs. Of course, the anti-bullying theme of ‘I just want to let them know that they didn’t break me’ will never age, and Molly Ringwald plays the quirky Andie just right, and we totally love her for her oddness. For others, there was the thrill of Andrew McCarthy, but I just never did get him and his thin lips and weedy smile.

After the screening we tried to do a fast turnaround and our little screening room became – whoosh! – a dance floor. The requests came thick and fast and, believe me, we did try to listen and play to the crowd, but there are some limits! Including time limits! So please come back next time if you didn’t hear your tune this time. We promise to be back and we are also taking requests for which film you want to see next (comment below, also if you want to be on the mailing list).

*To see any photographs larger, click on them. If you don’t wish to appear here, please get in touch and I will remove you.*

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Thanks to all of you who came and had fun with us. We are very grateful to the lovely pub The Talbot for having us. We also raised some money for the fundraising campaign for next year’s New Cross and Deptford Free Film Festival which you can read about here, oh and for details about the NXDFFF itself see here. We have just started meetings for next year’s festival, so you’d be just in time to get involved.

Brought to you by No82 Film Club and Dino Collective. On Twitter you can follow us here and here, and on Facebook you can like us here. Get in touch if you want to join our mailing list. We promise to only bring you emails which we think you will enjoy.

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Bananarara is a new evening based on the music of 80’s pop, brought to you by public demand. From 70’s extravaganza Bazooka Joe’s, we have moved on a decade to bring you the best of the 80’s, whilst not forgetting the same happy, feel good atmosphere.

You might not even realise that you like 80’s music – many people curl their lip Billy Idol-style at it, lumping all of the chart hits into one big 80’s memory. But on preparing the night I remembered and relived just how much good stuff was written. And it was going to be a challenge to fit the best into the time we had on the night.

You know, there was tons of good music during the 80’s, whatever ‘tribe’ you were. Apart from the pop music, there was soul, punk, goth, grunge, ‘Madchester’. But let’s face it, at Bananarara we stuck to what people come to an eighties party for. And seriously, with this much time between then and now, it was so great to dance (and sing) along to the hits again, even if I had heard them (and tried to tape them from the Top 40 on the radio onto a portable cassette player) at least 42,000 times back then.

Some of the most legendary music stars EVER made their name and, arguably, wrote some of their best tunes in the 80’s: from Madonna to Prince, from Michael Jackson to Elton John. I can’t even say if I liked it back then (but aged 11 I really remember watching the video on TOTP) but playing I’m Still Standing by (now Sir) Elton John just felt so right.

On the night itself we were delighted to celebrate two birthdays (a real eighteenth! and a cough twenty-first). Many happy returns to Yewa and Angela, thank you for bringing your own party to us – but Angela, don’t think we didn’t see you sneaking off with mini chocolate bars in your pop socks!

You may not ‘approve’ of nostalgia but we believe there is nothing wrong with it, not only can it be fun but it can also be life-affirming and positive. We wanted to remember the old days happily; it was ridiculous how many of the lyrics have stuck with us all for so many years. Then again, I was age 8 to 18 during the 80s. No wonder it had such an impact on me, at such a formative time in my life, and despite turning my back on it for some years, I am so pleased to be back.

We will return with another Bananarara and I promise you we will play Footloose, Fame and all the other dance-related songs starting with F that you requested. Thank you to everyone who came to the inaugural night, yes all of you lot who dressed up and did brilliant air-guitar and singing with us (it was especially great to see all three of you men, thank you for dressing up so perfectly – I’m not going to forget the appearance of Phil Oakey for a very long time).

See you in 2016 for more lacy cropped tights and shoulder pads. Come on (Eileen) have a laugh at the photos with me and see how many Madonnas you can count.

With thanks to the Hill Station for the warm and friendly venue.

Happy Christmas and here’s to more music, singing and dancing in the next year.

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A lot has happened since May, most of it not relevant to this blogette about discos and music and playing vinyl in the South of London. But aren’t you desperate to find out what happened when Bazooka Joe’s came to The Talbot for the fun and popular local festival Brockley Max?

The photos say a lot (mostly thank you to the ever generous and talented Jay Alix). As you can see there was bingo and Barry, synchronised disco dancing (thank you Ken and Matilda), nylon and nibbles and generally a lot of good fun.

The Disco Phone rang, and I like to think we answered it.

Here are lots more silly pictures. If you had came and had fun, please do comment, or if you have a venue and are looking for a fun night of retro 70s entertainment, get in touch and we will bring Bazooka Joe to you.

Our thanks go to the friendly venue, to the festival organisers of Brockley Max. and most of all to those of you who came, old timers and new friends. Looking forward to next year… if you’ll have us.

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You’ve either heard the term bandied about and wondered why on earth disco might be silent.

Or you’ve pranced around yourself wearing headphones in a dark quiet room looking quite the eccentric, bobbing about to sounds no one else can hear.

Silent disco has been around for years, originating in music festivals and used by some eco-activists to minimise noise pollution and disturbance to the local wildlife. The ‘silent’ element means the music can continue playing beyond a normal curfew. That silence is due to hearing the music through wireless headphones, and not ‘out loud’ – the music is broadcast through radio transmitters – although of course in reality there is no silence but a lot of singing aloud and giggling and, well, people having fun are not generally making much of an effort to remain quiet.

The term has been in the Oxford Dictionary Online since 2005. A silent disco was held in that year as one of the many activities at Bonnaroo Music Festival in Manchester, Tennessee, USA and the catchy term obviously stuck. Today there are many companies offering silent disco headset hire, in the UK and worldwide.

The high entertainment factor, and the main reason for their popularity, comes from the fact that silent disco headsets are generally manufactured with two or three channels, which gives the listener the choice of which one they want to listen to – and they can change between them as they wish. Due to the different music and tempos in the one party space (can be indoors, can be out) you get a funny rabble of all sorts of out of rhythm jigging and out of tune singing. From the DJ’s point of view, you are competing for dancers, but in a nice subtle way as it’s not glaringly obvious if nobody is dancing to your tunes (the pressure’s off – I love this about silent disco djing!). From the dancer’s or onlooker’s point of view it’s great fun to see who else is dancing to what you are dancing to. It’s a case of sidling up to people who have flung their hands in the air or started singing along to something en masse, and saying ‘I want what you are having!’ It’s basically very funny.

Silent disco doesn’t always suit the party, the atmosphere, the timing or the crowd. You come to know when in an evening it’s a good idea to ‘go silent’ or if it’s even worth it. We have a friend who is an expert in organising (and going to) parties full stop and if there were ever PHDs given out for Studies in Silent Disco, she would be the first recipient and would get a First for sure. She is our font of all knowledge when it comes to the art and science of silent disco and, what’s more, she has a large number of headsets for hire. In fact when she is ready to launch her company I will be fully bigging it up! Until then, we can access those very headsets (at a competitive price!) and that scientific know-how in order to organise a brilliant silent disco for YOU.

Don’t think that any DJ will do, either. You can’t use a diva of a DJ with silent disco, as he or she will want to claim to himself all the glory of the tunes and the frenzied crowd of dancers. The Dino Collective just want you to have a good time, by dancing to some great tunes. You give us the brief of what you want to hear – it’s not about us, it’s about YOU.

As you can see from the photos, silent disco can be for all ages (RIP Alan who enjoyed whiskey and dancing to the end). It can be used for different genres of music, film (just hook up a projector and you are ready to go), kids, outdoor parties, house parties where some people want to carry on chatting and not everybody wants to hear music or dance. It also seems to go very well with fancy dressing (you will see photographic evidence of some very fancy Mexican Day of the Dead outfits, don’t ask me why this theme goes so well with silent disco). We have even done a silent disco in a teepee in a field in Surrey, but it didn’t seem too necessary to be silent when you have hectares of space around you and no complaining neighbours, so after a while we gave up on the silent bit and just did noisy disco.

If I have spurred you on to hold your own silent disco, you know what to do. Try it!

If you want help sourcing the headsets, organising the night or just getting us to dj for you, please get in touch via a comment or through our Facebook page.

Freetime is the one where we get to play what we want. No theme, just a space to play stuff, where you get to come and hang out with us in your ‘freetime’ if you want to. No pressure, nothing to pay on the door, just nice friendly vibes.

On Friday we were back to our favourite Freetime venue, the Ivy House, which has been saved by the people and is London’s first co-operatively owned pub, and all the more special for it (quick confession, I am a shareholder, but that doesn’t mean any of the above is untrue).

Music-wise we played Audio Bullys to Congo Natty via Marvin Gaye, The Beat and Ibibio Sound Machine. Kit-wise we got through two mixers and three decks, having to make a quick detour home mid-set to pick up our own equipment. We played everything on proper old vinyl. Dancers were typically shy at first (apart from the ‘there’s always one’ guy who couldn’t sit down from the off) but by the time we got to the jungle face-off between djs D Rex and Kamakiri, everyone was a junglist and was forming circles to out-skank each other on the dancefloor. We had some winners in the crew who had travelled from Cardiff to spend some freetime with us, but there were definitely a few contenders!

Technical hitches aside, we had a blast and here comes a massive big thanks to all of you who joined us. It was a lovely mixture of regular Dino Collective fans, old pals and I think we made a few new ones. Welcome to Freetime courtesy of Dino Collective, and if you want to keep updated, you can subscribe to this blog or join our Facebook page.